Microsoft buys Gears of War franchise from Epic Games

Anyone holding out hope that the next Gears of War game would somehow be available on a non-Microsoft platform has had those hopes dashed this morning. Microsoft has announced its acquisition of the entire Gears of War franchise from previous owner and Unreal Engine developer Epic Games.

The move isn't much of a shock, considering that Microsoft Studios published the first four Gears of War games as Xbox 360 exclusives (not counting a Windows version for the 2006 original). Still, the acquisition locks up another high-profile shooter exclusively in the Xbox One camp, alongside the Halo series and EA/Respawn's heavily anticipated Titanfall.

"It all comes back to our commitment to Xbox fans," Microsoft Studios President Phil Spencer said in a statement. "The Gears of War franchise has a very strong, passionate, and valued fan base on Xbox... This franchise, and these fans, are part of the soul of Xbox."

The next Gears of War game will be the first title released by year-old development house Black Tusk Studios (formerly known as Microsoft Vancouver), which will be taking over the development duties from Epic. The new game will be overseen by Rod Fergusson, a producer who's previously worked on Gears of War as well as BioShock Infinite for 2K Games. The studio is being headed by Hanno Lemke, a veteran developer with over two decades of experience making games at Electronic Arts and elsewhere.

"The news that Rod Fergusson is joining Black Tusk should be really exciting for fans of the franchise," Lemke said in a statement. "Rod has played a leadership role at Epic on all of the Gears of Wars games, he understands the franchise deeply but equally importantly he understands the fans of the franchise—what they love, where they want to see the franchise evolve."

In a statement, Epic founder and CEO Tim Sweeney said the sale would allow Microsoft to move the Gears universe forward "as Epic concentrates its efforts on new projects."

Kyle Orland
Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area. Emailkyle.orland@arstechnica.com//Twitter@KyleOrl

81 Reader Comments

As a GOW fan, I wouldn't mind seeing it come to the PC. That being said, with the somewhat poor sales of the Xbox One so far, I wouldn't be surprised to see Microsoft acquire more studios, in hopes of getting more tantalizing exclusives.

As a GOW fan, I wouldn't mind seeing it come to the PC. That being said, with the somewhat poor sales of the Xbox One so far, I wouldn't be surprised to see Microsoft acquire more studios, in hopes of getting more tantalizing exclusives.

The One has sold fine. Less than the PS4 in the initial holiday stretch, but most definitely not poorly.

As a GOW fan, I wouldn't mind seeing it come to the PC. That being said, with the somewhat poor sales of the Xbox One so far, I wouldn't be surprised to see Microsoft acquire more studios, in hopes of getting more tantalizing exclusives.

Did not take long for someone to troll Xbox One hate.

3m+ units in 6 weeks is poor sales!

And even if Epic did not sell the rights to MS, it was probably going to stay exclusive regardless.

This is more Epic wanting to focus on other things while getting a nice payout from MS to do so. MS now can put as much money as they want into future development. This is the same thing that happened to Halo.

Acquiring the franchise and not the developer -- I like this move. I hope we see more of this and less publisher acquisitions of studios because that model is broken. No one likes to be chained by the publisher to a single IP and forced to churn out an endless flow of sequels and spinoffs.

I guess this means Black Tusk isn't working on a new IP anyway? That seems to be the gist of it at least, though I guess they could be doing both. Having Gears is nice and all of course, but I'd rather have seen a new, less dude-bro IP...

And even if Epic did not sell the rights to MS, it was probably going to stay exclusive regardless.

This is more Epic wanting to focus on other things while getting a nice payout from MS to do so. MS now can put as much money as they want into future development. This is the same thing that happened to Halo.

Or it could have been that the exclusivity contract was about to expire and instead of letting that happen, MS simply purchased the rights.

Outside of contractual obligations, what motivation would Epic have had to keep the next Gears of War game off of the PS4? I can think of a good reason for Epic to release on both the Xbox One and PS4: more sales. Considering the cross platform nature of UE4 and similar hardware between the Xbox One and PS4, it wouldn't have taken much to make it appear on both systems.

As a GOW fan, I wouldn't mind seeing it come to the PC. That being said, with the somewhat poor sales of the Xbox One so far, I wouldn't be surprised to see Microsoft acquire more studios, in hopes of getting more tantalizing exclusives.

Microsoft sure loves the sci fi man shoots. And so do probably a lot of Xbox owners.

I suspect it has less to do with that game type in particular, and more with Microsoft sniffing out which gamers are most loyal to the platform and what they play. For example: I'm an unrepentant Halo nut, and own an XBox 360 pretty much exclusively because of that franchise (and I swear I'm not a DudeBro™). I'll buy an XBox One once there's a Halo game for it. Will I buy other games? Of course. But that particular franchise is what keeps me in lock-step to the XBox.

I'm sure this isn't the last game IP or studio Microsoft will bring in under its development wing. If anything, I'd be curious just how many games Microsoft eventually controls like this, and how large of a portion of game sales it makes up for their consoles. It's a very vertical, almost Nintendo-like approach.

I think that it's a somewhat curious move by Microsoft because the Gears of War franchise is winding down. GoW 3 was pretty much the end, and Gears of War: Judgment (which was a prequel) sold very poorly (1.4M copies) compared to the 1st free (which sold 5-6M copies).

If Epic was willing to part with it, it could because they didn't see anywhere else that it could go.

this is a bad thing...if the take over of Halo by Microsoft is any indication of Microsoft's ability to make a great game is any indication, the next Gears will be a total bust.I was so disappointed with Halo 4. Gone was the iconic music score. The score was as much a character to the story as the grunts or the warthog are. But Halo 4? Nope...the music score sounds like a cheap '70s era porno. And when the main melody runs out, and you are still exploring a remote area, the music goes into what I can only assume is a randomly generated series of notes that makes absolutely no melodic sense. And the game play....talk about plodding! Sure, it's an FPS, and there's only so much you can do with an FPS...but compare Halo 3 to Halo 4 and the difference between them is night and day. Plus, I don't like the direction that Halo 4 took us in. It totally violates the "historical" documentation that was written for the Halo universe. I guess nobody at Microsoft read the Halo Encyclopedia...or any of the books, or even any of the fan-fiction to see where the fans want the Halo franchise to go! Unfortunately, Microsoft purchasing Gears seems that it will suffer the same fate. I loved Gears 1 and 2...(2 was a little easier than 1, but no less fun to play) I have Gears3 but haven't played it yet...I guess I'll try the Microsoft first effort...but I will be looking at it with a yellowy eye!

As a GOW fan, I wouldn't mind seeing it come to the PC. That being said, with the somewhat poor sales of the Xbox One so far, I wouldn't be surprised to see Microsoft acquire more studios, in hopes of getting more tantalizing exclusives.

I don't own or plan to own either console, I'm strictly a PC gamer, and I'm not invested of the success of either console.

It's rather useless to compare overall numbers between the 2 since the PS4 launched a week before the XB1 since XB1 is going to always to be playing catch up initially. If you look at December, the story is different.http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/16/decem ... station-4/According to NPD, MS is dominating Sony with both console and software sales.

I'm a big Gears multiplayer fan (honestly it was the first console shooter I took a liking to).

I never got the Halo love - it moves too slowly for me or something. I guess too many hours of Quake / Quake 2 back in the day. Gears 1 felt like the right blend of franticness I expected from an oldschool FPS (lots of rolling/dodging/running away like a madman - frantic 1 on 4 shotgun battles - etc).

Gears Judgment...man...so many things they did wrong there. I went back to playing Gears 3 after about 2 weeks of Judgement.

Hopefully MS can get the franchise back on track at least as far as the multiplayer. Gears 3 multiplayer was really good (regardless of somewhat lame sawed-off shotgun).

Oh wow, now we never have to worry about the XBox not having a drab brown shooter for the holiday season, like that was ever a worry. The XBox has garnered a reputation as a box that has tons of shooters but a somewhat thin selection of other games, especially when compared with the Sony offering and its multitude of Japanese RPGs and strategy games.

When I had a 360, I did enjoy Gears quite a bit. But it's getting long in the tooth, and with how poorly Halo has been treated as a Microsoft property, I expect much the same dismal future for Gears. Sad.

Microsoft sure loves the sci fi man shoots. And so do probably a lot of Xbox owners.

I suspect it has less to do with that game type in particular, and more with Microsoft sniffing out which gamers are most loyal to the platform and what they play. For example: I'm an unrepentant Halo nut, and own an XBox 360 pretty much exclusively because of that franchise (and I swear I'm not a DudeBro™). I'll buy an XBox One once there's a Halo game for it. Will I buy other games? Of course. But that particular franchise is what keeps me in lock-step to the XBox.

I'm sure this isn't the last game IP or studio Microsoft will bring in under its development wing. If anything, I'd be curious just how many games Microsoft eventually controls like this, and how large of a portion of game sales it makes up for their consoles. It's a very vertical, almost Nintendo-like approach.

True, especially with the strong initial sales of the PS4. GoW on 360 only was not as big of a disadvantage as it would be today, with the 360 having a big lead in the NA over PS3 for most of the generation. Unless that contract was big enough.

I guess nobody at Microsoft read the Halo Encyclopedia...or any of the books, or even any of the fan-fiction to see where the fans want the Halo franchise to go!

You realize that the person who wrote the Halo Encyclopedia, Frank O'Connor, is head of 343 Industries? Halo 4's single-player storyline was entirely cogent with the game's canon.

And God... GOD. "fan-fiction" is the last place any dev studio should ever look for inspiration.

That being said: I'll totally agree with you in principle, that a change of studios is potentially perilous to the continuity of a game's story and experience. I won't argue that the feel of Halo 4 wasn't wildly divergent of the games that preceded it (although, you really should go back and play Reach: The mood and pacing between Reach and 4 are very similar. It was more Halo 4's multiplayer that completely broke with the past, for good or for bad). I'm not as familiar with GoW, but at least according to Zeebee's comment, it sounds like a fresh approach might not be a bad thing.

It's an ok game. Nothing spiritually uplifting or deep, but before things like Left 4 Dead came out, it was one of the better co-op experiences I had on the system in its earlier years. I've played dozens of games that were far worse. But like Halo I've pretty much moved on and if I happen to go PS4 I'm not going to be terribly bothered by the exclusivity. And frankly, I'm sure most people thought it was an MS-developed game anyway, so this will change little in the minds of anyone on the fence, waiting to see what happened to the GOW franchise.

Cute. But I was thinking more along the lines of a proper new Unreal or UT game, refining Bulletstorm a little more, or even starting a new series. Gears of War did nothing but spawn even more dudebros and make chest-high walls and mediocre "cover mechanics" a staple of games for years afterwards.

While this is great news for fans of Gears of War. I liked the first one but the writing & storyline of the second one turned me off of the series.

But MS IMO has been coasting on Forza, Halo, GOW and Fable for a while with the 360, and personally I have gotten bored with them.

I think the decision MS made later in the life of the 360 to focus on entertainment and kinect and not continue to develop many new 1st party games has resulted in not alot of diversity when it comes to 1st party franchises. Which is why I think MS bought exclusivity for 3rd part games like Dead Rising 3, Titanfall and now the GOW series.

But I think that is just a temporary fix and MS will need to be much more aggressive with new IP throughout the life of the Xbox One than it was with the 360.

What sucks is that MS had Microsoft Gaming Studio with alot of great studios that made great games that MS got rid of.

Oh wow, now we never have to worry about the XBox not having a drab brown shooter for the holiday season, like that was ever a worry. The XBox has garnered a reputation as a box that has tons of shooters but a somewhat thin selection of other games, especially when compared with the Sony offering and its multitude of Japanese RPGs and strategy games.

At least a GoW/Halo as an annual release rotation is a better annual mix up than a new AssCreed/CoD every year.

PS3 compared to the PS2 was very lacking in JRPGs and strategy games.

Demon's Souls, and... a couple "Tales of". There are some NIS, White Knight and couple others but they are rather niche and not really highly regarded as great JRPGs.

Valkyria Chronicles and Disgaea for the strat side of things.

PSP/DS/3DS have been the best platform for JRPGs the past years. (And strategy games)

As a GOW fan, I wouldn't mind seeing it come to the PC. That being said, with the somewhat poor sales of the Xbox One so far, I wouldn't be surprised to see Microsoft acquire more studios, in hopes of getting more tantalizing exclusives.

I don't own or plan to own either console, I'm strictly a PC gamer, and I'm not invested of the success of either console.

It's rather useless to compare overall numbers between the 2 since the PS4 launched a week before the XB1 since XB1 is going to always to be playing catch up initially. If you look at December, the story is different.http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/16/decem ... station-4/According to NPD, MS is dominating Sony with both console and software sales.

NPD is for USA sales only, while the Forbes article in comparing official released numbers for worldwide sales.

Even in their article:Keep in mind that these NPD figures only cover new sales at physical retailers in the U.S. That means it doesn’t include used games, digital sales, or rentals. It’s a good way to understand what’s selling, but it doesn’t capture the whole picture and leaves out important market segments like mobile, massively multiplayer online games, and free-to-play PC titles.

As a GOW fan, I wouldn't mind seeing it come to the PC. That being said, with the somewhat poor sales of the Xbox One so far, I wouldn't be surprised to see Microsoft acquire more studios, in hopes of getting more tantalizing exclusives.

I would also love to see it come to PC, but it's Microsoft so we'll either have to wait a couple years for new releases to get ported, or they won't get ported at all.

I am sad that halo is an xbox exclusive. I played the first one on pc and love the game play. I would love to play the other games but I don't have a gaming pc anymore and I will not buy an xbox for it. Titan fall would be cool if it had a single player mode. As it stands no interest.

As for gears of war? Microsoft can keep it. The testosterone spewing main characters and brewhahaa settings kill any bit of desire I cloud have for it.

As a GOW fan, I wouldn't mind seeing it come to the PC. That being said, with the somewhat poor sales of the Xbox One so far, I wouldn't be surprised to see Microsoft acquire more studios, in hopes of getting more tantalizing exclusives.

I don't own or plan to own either console, I'm strictly a PC gamer, and I'm not invested of the success of either console.

It's rather useless to compare overall numbers between the 2 since the PS4 launched a week before the XB1 since XB1 is going to always to be playing catch up initially. If you look at December, the story is different.http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/16/decem ... station-4/According to NPD, MS is dominating Sony with both console and software sales.

Holy cherry picking, Batman.

You know PS4 is ahead in worldwide sales, right?

Its also worth pointing out the PS4 has released in more countries, and sales numbers for both consoles are likely shaped more by supply than demand. A year from now, we can argue about who is winning.

Microsoft sure loves the sci fi man shoots. And so do probably a lot of Xbox owners.

PC release for GoW or Halo? huh huh huhhh? Wishful thinking. Surprised Respawn were able to work in a PC release for Titanfall in their contract.

Gears of War 1 and Halo 1 and 2, like Titanfall, were both released for Windows. Seems to me that Microsoft wouldn't be nearly as upset by people saying "Xbox or Windows gaming PC" as debating between Xbox and a non-Microsoft platform.